I am NOT Ted Mosby. Well, maybe...

Do you watch How I Met Your Mother?

After hearing so much about this show from friends, I decided to tune in and catch an episode. And yes, after one episode I was totally hooked. If you're a fan of the show and were wondering, it was the episode titled "Ten Sessions" from Season 3 where Ted takes Stella on a "two minute date". It was absolutely romantic and quite heartfelt. Ever since then, I have caught up with all 5 seasons and had have successfully gotten 4 people hooked on the series. I am a huge fan of the concept in general - "a love story told in reverse"; I love the characters, the witty dialogue and banter, the moments of absurdity, the slew of 80s pop culture references (including at least 3 episodes referencing Ghostbusters), and the brilliant sense of continuity held throughout the series.


And PS. NPH is the MAN. Case in point:

Perhaps my main attraction to the series is the main protagonist and narrator - Ted Mosby. He's described by the wonderful editors of Wikipedia as "a professed romantic who is eager to get married and settle down". While that does not all necessarily apply to me at this point in my life, I do consider myself a romantic and I am looking forward to marriage and children. And as most of my friends know (all too well) - I do share the tendency to "Ted-out" and "Ted-up". These phrases, coined by his friends in the 1st season, explain Ted's tendency to overthink with disastrous consequences.

One of my favorite lines from Ted goes as follows:

"You know what? I'm done being single, I'm not good at it. Look, obviously you can't tell a woman you just met that you love her, but it sucks that you can't. I'll tell you something though, if a woman, not you, just some hypothetical woman, were to bear with me through all this, I think I'd make a damn good husband, because that's the stuff I'd be good at. Stuff like making her laugh and being a good father and walking her five hypothetical dogs."

So perhaps I am the Chinese version of Ted Mosby. On a side note, as I develop a stronger sense of cultural identity I am making more of an effort to refrain from using the blanket term "Asian". Anyway, I like to think that there's a little Ted Mosby in all of us. And that's definitely not a bad thing.

Timelines utterly fascinate me as I have dedicated quite a number of posts to the subject. When I started dating my ex, I used to keep a journal of our story - how we met, how we dated, and how our relationship evolved. Obviously that story did not end well but I like to think of it (as cliched as it sounds) merely as the close of a chapter - a relationship that had to begin and end for me to become the man destined to be with my soul mate.

I have another favorite quote from Ted where he explains why he's telling his children all these random, inane stories about him and his friends rather than just flat out telling them how he met their mother. Something like, "There's a more important story than how I met your mother. It's how I became the man I had to be to meet her". I totally get that.

Do I believe in the concept of soul mates? Yes and no. As a negative, the idea of a soul mate can be dangerous without the right mentality leading to a disastrous trend of wishful thinking. But.. it does provide a bit of comfort thinking that "she" is somewhere out there waiting for me.